Harvest--a free story

I love writing and publishing. Even the hard parts, where I'm struggling to get a story written or when it seems like no one wants to publish it. I love it. What I don't love, the only part I absolutely despise, is when I have to trust a publisher and they let me down.

Unless I know a publisher personally, or have read their other books, it's a leap of faith. Are they reliable? Do they know what they're doing? Are they committed to publishing things that don't perpetuate harmful stereotypes or tropes?

Sometimes the answer to that last one is no. I don't think anyone has bad intentions; however, sometimes harmful ideas are so deeply ingrained in our society that, unless you are directly affected by them, it's hard to realize that they hurt people. I am not angry at these publishers. Disappointed, maybe.

I am lucky that my first few publications were absolutely awesome. In fact, the large majority of publishers and editors have been amazing to work with. I am not famous, I am not rich. But I have done well enough in my publishing career that I don't feel the need to advertise books that are not in line with my values. I can advertise the rest of them, and publish my story as a free reprint when the exclusivity period runs out.

That is what I'm doing here. And when I say my values, what I mean is… I don't care what happens in the other stories I am published with. I don't care if there is more violence and swearing and sex than my stories usually have. I don't care if the characters are of a different faith or political affiliation than I am. But when the stories make fun of people for their size, when women characters only exist to be victims, when characters are ableist or homophobic or racist or misogynistic and this is treated like it's perfectly OK? I'm not good with that, And I won't advertise a book to my friends who will be harmed by those ideas.

So. Harvest. It's a story I described as a scary Groundhog Day, everything repeating over and over and over. I like my story. I did not like some of the other stories that were in the book it was published in. But the rights have reverted back to me, and rather than seek publication again, I am doing what I always do when a book disappoints me, and I am giving the story away.

I hope you enjoy it.

Harvest

by Jennifer Lee Rossman

The children run through the fields like wild horses that don't remember a life without fences but still have the innate urge to run. That's good. As long as we know, somewhere deep inside, that we're supposed to have an endless world to explore, then all is not lost.

I envy them sometimes. They don't know it wasn't always this way, that we were once free. That we had tomorrows.

But mostly I envy the way they don't try to change it. Trying and failing, day after endless day.

***

I tend the fields. Picking the ripe corn, propping up the bent stalks and telling the kids to stop trampling the crops. Looking like a bountiful harvest this year.

A bird flies overhead. Big one; a hawk or maybe an eagle. It's never come near enough for me to see.

I must have lost track of time again. I thought I'd budgeted it better today.

I look over my shoulder and see him amble into town the way he always does, that silly hat cocked to the side like he thinks he's some kind of movie star or something.

Not that he doesn't have the looks for it. I think. It's been so long since I've seen him up close, I can't really remember his face.

I drop my basket and run to him like I always do. It's too late; the bird has already flown past. But I have to try. If I don't at least try, then I might as well give up.

I shout his name, but he doesn't look up. He's petting that stray dog again. He loves animals. We were going to expand the farm, before it all happened. Get cows and sheep and maybe a couple goats.

He hears me the second time, but the sky explodes with light and it's all wiped from existence.

***

He's gone when I wake up. I have the note on his pillow memorized.

"Wanted to get an early start on the day. Have some errands to do before going to the bank. Wish me luck. Can't wait to see you."

Turns out he can wait. I tried keeping track at first, but lost count after a few hundred days. I figure it's been at least a century, all the years made up of the same Wednesday, August third.

Maybe this time I'll just stay in bed. I don't think I've tried that before. Stay in bed, refuse all visitors, and someone will worry about me and go to find him. And he'll come home.

The knocking starts a few minutes later. My sisters, wanting to drag me off to shop for a new dress for Uncle Eddie's wedding. I'll tell them the dress I wore to his last four weddings will do just fine, but they'll refuse and I'll spend most of the day in a hellish landscape of pastel taffeta.

When I don't answer the door, they open it. Okay, so tomorrow I'll remember to lock the door before going back to bed.

Of course, my doing that will inevitably cause some unforeseeable crisis. Maybe I'll go to get a drink and the faucet will flood the kitchen, maybe knock over a candle and set the curtains on fire, and my plans will be ruined.

It has a way of resetting itself; I think they depend on the routine, on every day beginning and ending the same way. I can get in a car and drive for hours, and some magical force will bring me back here by evening, tending that field when the bird flies over. I know it will; I've tried.

Oh, how I've tried.

I plaster a smile on my face as my sisters burst into the bedroom, all red hair and opinions. There's no use fighting this part once it's started; some things, like the bird and the dog and apparently my sisters, can't be changed. I've tried finding a home for the stray dog, but it always finds a way to be there, waiting to be pet when he comes through.

So I nod and smile and say my lines until we're at the dress shop. I can sway this part a bit, pick the one with long sleeves or ask if I can see it in a different color. It's a weak point.

I hold a pink A-line up to myself. "What do you think?"

My oldest sister, Viola, clasps her hands over her heart like she does no matter which one I choose, but Belle falters. She hates pink, and can't bring herself to follow the script, to say "That color looks ravishing on you," like she did the first thousand times, before I realized I didn't have to pick the pale green one again.

"Isn't it the prettiest color?" I prompt, the thrill of rebellion dancing in my chest.

"No," she whispers.

I get it. It hurts at first, going against the pattern, but that fades.

Viola shuffles clothes on the rack with increased vigor, trying to get us back on track. "What if we wore matching dresses? Imagine the three of us, all in green chiffon. Wouldn't it be splendid?"

"Why don't you like it?" I press Belle. "Because you hate the color, or because they need you to hate it so I'll pick the one I picked on the day they came?"

"What are you talking about?" she asks, but she knows. Everyone does, or they'd have stopped me from setting the town on fire that one time I tried it. But they didn't. The witches want a repeat of the day, so they all walked through the flames and talked about work as they were consumed. Like wind-up toys that can't stop from falling off a table.

I take Belle's trembling hand. "We can leave. Come on, I need your help. Leave the shop with me, sis."

Viola and the shopkeeper unconsciously say their lines more loudly and move with exaggerated motion. They don't want to remember why; they only want to recite their inane comments about dresses. Drowning us out.

"Lavender with a ruffled collar!

"Belle," I plead. 

"But blue would go so well with her blonde curls!"

I take her hand. "Does any of this feel normal?"

"WHAT ABOUT A HAT?"

"Trust me."

"A HAT WOULD LOOK DIVINE!"

Something clicks, a light flicking on in her eyes. She takes one last look at Viola, twirling like a cyclone with a monstrosity of taffeta, and we run. Out the door and down an alley, toward the bank.

I take comfort in the fact that no one can actively stop us without breaking the routine, but that doesn't mean fate can't step in our way.

"Miss Bishop," says Mrs. Ashbury, her wheelchair taking up the entire alleyway as she takes out her trash. She smiles kindly, and I know what's coming. It usually comes later in the day, but they'll change things around sometimes, anything to keep me in line.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I understand your entire family just showed up on your doorstep from Missouri and you haven't gone shopping."

Belle furrows her brow.

"But I'm afraid I don't have time to go pick corn for your dinner, no matter how much pie you promise to bake me." Just on the offchance I succeed and there is a tomorrow, I smile and add, "But tomorrow night, I'll make it up to you and cook a full dinner for you all. Ham sound good?"

I sneak past without waiting for an answer. As we emerge onto the main thoroughfare in town, countless people, who up until that point were going about their day as usual, suddenly find reasons to speak to me. I quicken my pace and give my excuses without stopping to hear their questions. I've heard them all a hundred times. Maybe more.

"No, I can't donate any more corn for your food drive. No, if your kids' ball went in my fields, you can go looking for it. I'm sorry, no, I don't want to look at a dinosaur fossil you think you found, Mr. H., especially if it's near my cornfield."

Belle follows in a silent, terrified bewilderment until she can't stand it anymore. "Why is everyone bothering you?" she demands, dragging me to a stop just a block from the bank. "Why do they suddenly care so much about your cornfield?"

"Because that's where the cycle ends." I try to move on but her fingers curl around my sleeve and root me to the stop. The bank is so close, the sun so low in the sky. He'll be coming out any minute.

I rush through the explanation.

"On August third, 1948, the witches came to town, and it's been August third ever since. They're parasites. They feed on time. Our time. They make us relive the same day over and over again in a loop, so they can use the time that should be passing, the moment right after five in the evening that never comes. They're immortal because of towns like us, Belle. I need to be in my field because that's where I was the first time, and the day has to end the same way every time. But we can fight it. We can stop them."

She doesn't deny it. She remembers the day they came, too. Apologizing for what they were about to do, like that made it okay.

"How?" she asks.

"By rebelling. The flash in the sky gets dimmer the more I change things. Weakens their hold on us, I think. I got it so I could barely see it once, but I think I need more people."

She nods like I'm making sense, though I must be blathering like a fool. "How long has it been?"

"Lost count."

"So why now?"

"Because I can't remember what Ben looks like." I point to the bank. "He's coming out of there in a few minutes, and I need to be with him when the bird flies over my field."

She nods, but I can tell she doesn't completely understand. I get it. Took me a few months from first becoming aware to actually being able to rebel, and years to make the connection between my changes and the brightness of the flash. Even now, most of what I told her is based on speculation, and I've had a lot of time to sit around and speculate.

If I have to, I'll tell her everything again tomorrow, and all the tomorrows until it sticks, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

"Just don't let me do anything except go to Ben and stay with him," I tell her, dragging her down the street. "Three people not being where they should be. Might be enough."

If not, I'll spend the next ten thousand years recruiting every person in town if that's what it takes.

We disrupt as much as possible as we run down the block. Stopping cars in the street, ignoring everyone... I even pick up the stray dog and carry it with me. If he wants to pet the little mutt so much, I'll bring it to him.

A small crowd assembles at the bank entrance, all shouting incomprehensibly. Belle declines all offers to go with them, following me up the steps.

The door opens as I reach for the handle, and I see his face.

Handsome, with a bit of beard and that damn hat all askew.

My heart soars. I know this is it. This is how we stop the repetition. We have to end the day together.

But he frowns, backing away like I'm a venomous snake. I don't understand. Shouldn't he be happy to see me?

The crowd disperses, back to wherever they're supposed to be when the day ends, and Ben runs for the back exit.

I'm not in my field to see him coming and he doesn't stop to pet the dog, but the sky still flashes and it all starts again.

***

I hate my ceiling.

I hate every morning that I wake up alone, staring up at it, and I hate that I never get home at night to see it.

When my sisters knock, I don't waste time getting to the door. It almost worked yesterday. I just have to try harder.

Belle looks at me differently today. She doesn't exactly remember, but it doesn't take as long to convince her. After a few more cycles, we get Viola and a few of the neighbors on board.

Now they don't bother coming to my house in the morning. Their new routine takes them to the bank, the grocer's, and the shoe repair shop—everywhere Ben will go today—and convincing the owners that time is frozen and they need to close shop.

It doesn't work. He always finds a reason, an excuse to avoid me, no matter where or when we meet. Like he doesn't want to be with me.

After a while—I've lost track of how long—everyone seems trapped in the new routine we've created. Go to town, close up the shops, try to get me to Ben. It's almost impossible to make them do anything differently, and now my day ends not watching him walking toward me but watching him run away.

And here I thought it couldn't hurt more than when I couldn't remember what he looked like.

***

I manage to get to him early in the day. Earlier than I ever have. It took some serious planning and running, and I had to punch one of my neighbors who tried to block my doorway, but I did it.

"Talk to me," I beg, following him down the street and dodging those who would keep us apart. "We can fix this. We just need to get everyone to realize—"

He stops, spins around to face me. I want to wrap my arms around him but the hatred in his eyes stops me cold.

"Realize what?" he seeths in a low voice. "That witches are stealing time from us? Making us repeat the day? And if we can all just rebel, find our true loves and stop replaying our actions, it will weaken them somehow?"

I nod.

"And how does that make any sense? Seriously." He moves closer, our faces nearly touching. "If they're stealing our time, why does it matter what we do with our day?"

"So maybe it doesn't," I say after a moment's thought. "But they're witches, aren't they? Since when do they have to make sense?"

He doesn't answer, just stares at me. Panic rises in my chest as the entire town surrounds us.

It really doesn't make any sense. And yet I never doubted my theory because I didn't have another.

It had to work, had to be true, or I'd be trapped here.

Without him.

But now, with him growling in my face, the entire town closing in on us, maybe I don't want to be with him.

He must have been aware of the cycle, too. So why didn't he fight? Try to change things and find me? Maybe he couldn't, and the frustration's finally gotten to him. Driven him over the edge.

I want to say something, but the words die in my mouth. I don't know this man.

I don't know him, I realize suddenly. Up close, I don't actually recognize him. He's a stranger.

I try to picture our wedding, our first date. Yesterday. But it isn't him—just someone who looks like someone I should know. A dead-eyed imposter. They all are.

Looking out beyond their crowded heads, I see the cracks in the town. The buildings that are just wooden facades, the painted sky and its mechanical birds. I look back at him. A smile creeps across his lips.

"Have you figured it out, yet?" he asks.

"It isn't real," I whisper, starting to feel lightheaded. "None of it. The invasion, the—"

"That's where you're wrong. It is real."

His voice is joined by the dozens around us and they speak as one echoing entity.

"We came to your town. Enslaved you. Not the town. You."

My heart races, my limbs tingle. I have to get out of here.

"We don't feed on time. That is an interesting theory, though." They all cock their heads to the side in unison. "No, we feed on your fear. And it's time to bring in the harvest."

***

They run through the fields. Wild horses that know nothing of fences except the invisible ones built around me. The instinct to run is buried deep inside them. They know there's nothing more terrifying than a coven of witches crashing through acres of corn, hands reaching out but never quite catching me.

And still I envy them. The chasers, not the chased, who haven't spent hundreds of years trapped inside their own mind. They may feed off my fear, and the fear of god knows how many others like me, but they don't have to live with it.

The sky is darkening. I don't know how much longer I can run.

The bird flies overhead.

And here I am in my field, Ben coming in from town. He doesn't stop to pet the dog.

I stop running, welcoming the flash and the opportunity to do it differently tomorrow.

But the sky doesn't flash.

There is no tomorrow.

They descend upon me, my heart pumping liquid terror through my body.

I am a bountiful harvest.

END

Gay Apparel Anthology

Don we now our gay apparel!

It’s the most fabulous time of the year!

Make the Yuletide gay!

It’s Christmas, and I wrote a gay story, Is my point here. I specifically wrote it for Rachel Sharp‘s “Gay apparel“, an anthology of very short, very gay holiday stories.

My story is “another unnecessary reimagining of a Christmas Carol (except this one’s queer),“ Which is… Basically what it sounds like.

This anthology was conceived love, written for, and edited in about two weeks. Rachel deserves so much credit for being amazing.

Now here’s the thing. You can’t buy this anthology. It’s not in print, it’s not on a website. Rather, you get a digital copy when you donate to one of the authors’ chosen charities or Patreons or whatever. It’s sort of a stealth anthology. Find one of us, donate to our charity, send us proof of the donation, and you get yourself a book.

My charity of choice is the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. A lot of autistic organizations are actually run by neurotypical people who do not understand, or sometimes even listen to, autistic people. The ASAN is run by autistic people, giving us the supports we need and educating the public without trying to cure us. They do a lot of great work, and are a wonderful alternative to Autism Speaks, which many autistic people consider a hate group.

https://autisticadvocacy.org/

So email me at jenniferleerossman@gmail.com, contact me on Twitter @JenLRossman, leave me a comment… Just contact me somehow and show me that you have made a donation of any size to the ASAN, And I will send you a Digital copy of the book!

Giftmas 2019

It’s that time of year again… GIFTMAS! This yearly fundraiser put together by Rhonda Parrish (Editor extraordinaire and generally awesome lady) is a blog tour that raises money for the Edmonton Food Bank in Edmonton, Alberta. There is also a raffle, but more on that in a sec.
Thanks to the wonders of buying in bulk, every dollar raised in this fundraiser will provide three meals to hungry people. And since the money they are raising is in Canadian dollars, we Americans get more bang for our buck, to quote Rhonda.
This year, there is also a snowman drawing contest! More details on that here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/snowman-drawing-31876321

Now, onto business. Here is the main link to the fundraiser. We are trying to raise $1000 this year, I know we can do it with your help. http://bit.ly/Giftmas2019

Want to enter the raffle and win fabulous prizes? My contribution this year is 100 tiny glow in the dark alien figurines. http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/bc98f9ba16/


I have no personal stake in this. I have never gone hungry, I have never been to Edmonton. I volunteered to help a few years ago because Rhonda was one of the first editors I worked with and I wanted to help her out. But it is really important to me because I know I am helping feed people even if I have never met them, even if I never will meet them, I am helping them. So I’m going to ask you to donate if you can, and if you can’t, please share these links with others. We are doing good and having fun doing it.

So now that the important stuff is out of the way, I guess it is time for my blog post.

 I’ll be honest, I was not sure what to write for this blog post. I’ve been part of Giftmas for… What, three years now? And I always struggle to write a good blog post for things like this. I always think I should be funnier, more heartfelt, less serious, more serious…

So I’ve decided to just talk about Christmas.

This Christmas is going to be different than any Christmas I’ve ever experienced. In February of this year, I moved out of my mom‘s apartment. Our relationship was not good, even though it was really good sometimes, And even though I still really miss the good times, because she was abusive. It is still hard for me to write those words, because I know there are people reading this who wish I would not put family business on the Internet. But this is my life.

When I was young, Christmas was magical. Trees and decorations and presents and chocolates. Believing in Santa and going to my friend‘s to celebrate with her big family, watching Rankin Bass specials.

That slowly stopped. There was no one year where we stopped doing that, we just… Tapered off. And this year, I was told that when I was young, my parents didn’t think I was going to live to be an adult. Every few years, they were told I might live a little bit longer than they expected.

Those years roughly corresponds to when we started tapering off. It might be a coincidence, but I don’t think so. I think they were trying to fit in as much Christmas as they could while I was still alive. It’s sad. It almost ruins the memories of those piles of presents. Almost.

Around the time I became a teenager, Around the time they were told I might Have a normal life expectancy, and around the time my parents got divorced, Christmas just stopped.

I still wanted Christmas. Maybe I didn’t believe in Santa anymore, but I believed that we could still have Christmas. I kept trying. Except… We weren’t friends with my friend and her big family anymore, we didn’t buy presents, putting up the tree became such a hassle that my mom didn’t do it anymore.

For over half my life, I didn’t celebrate Christmas. We didn’t listen to Christmas music. Even if it came on the radio, it would be turned off immediately. It felt like a holiday version of that town in footloose that banned dancing.

My last Christmas at home, I don’t think we did anything. I don’t think we even acknowledge the day. I don’t think I even bought a present for my cat. We just did not do Christmas.

Then I moved out. It was planned and unplanned, a long time coming and spontaneous, something I had prepared for and total chaos.

I live in a group home. I am slowly, at the age of 29, figuring out how to be an adult. I decided I should buy presents for all of my family who was so awesome while I was moving out, but I wasn’t really doing Christmas.

And then I thought about buying presents for my housemates. Maybe a card for one or two people, if I found a really awesome card for them. But still. I wasn’t doing Christmas.

Then suddenly, I’m humming along to Christmas music. Not necessarily because I wanted to, or because I felt like I finally could, it just. It just happened, and it felt good, And no one thought I was weird or wrong for doing it, So I sat in the main room of my group home with housemates and staff and we belted out Christmas songs.

I’ve been watching Christmas specials, I helped decorate the house, I’m buying a Christmas shirt. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to accept The fact that I am doing Christmas this year.

I don’t know what it’s going to look like, I don’t know what it’s going to feel like. I don’t have any cherished traditions anymore, but I think I want to make some.

Not sure what happened to the font there. Anyway.

If you want to follow the rest of the blog Tour, Here Is a helpful Little schedule

Dragon bikes Kickstarter!

Hey, real quick post.

I have a story in a book about dragons and bicycles and feminism… In… SPAAAACE! We are currently kickstarting it, and have a week to go. If you want to help out an amazing publisher, Pay some authors, and get a super cool book in return, please consider contributing to our Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ellyblue/dragon-bike-fantastical-feminist-bicycle-stories?ref=dw01dv&token=3e277b14

Seven sisters

 Light pollution. That’s the name for  what happens when man-made lights outshine the stars.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1082094439/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_3905707922?_encoding=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0&ie=UTF8&pldnSite=1

 Seven Sisters  is… I’m not really sure how to explain it. Is it a story about the Pleiades star cluster? Yes and no. Is it about the power of mythology?… Kind of.  Is it a metaphor that tells the story of a teenage girl coming to terms with her father‘s death? I honestly don’t know if it’s a metaphor or not.  I just sort of…  decided to write a story about stars  going dark,  and this is what I ended up with.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful story and I love it. I’m just not sure what my intention was with it, and I’m not sure just how much of the story was real and how much was imaginary. I think every reader will get something different from the story, but here is what I personally get from:

It sucks to lose a parent. Both of my parents are still alive, but I’ve still lost them  because they aren’t in my life anymore. Not in any real, concrete way  like they used to be.  So what do you do when the people you have relied on your entire life to protect you…  are just gone one day? What do you do? How do you deal with these emotions?

 The relationship between a father and daughter in my story is very much based on my own father and I. We were best friends, he loved science and making up stories, and then he just wasn’t part of my life anymore.  It was for the best, at the time, but I still went through long periods of missing him and wishing I could ask him for advice when life got complicated.

Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters cover reveal

I’m excited to get a chance to show off the cover of  Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters, edited by the amazing Sarena Ulibarri!

 My story, Oil and Ivory,  is one of 17 stories in this ecologically-minded anthology of science fiction. It features hey hi tech Inuit community trying to save migrating narwhals while also battling an oil spill. My original title while I was writing the first draft was “Ferngully, but with narwhals.“

The book is  going to be published on January 7, but  pre-order now and save!

https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p169/Glass_and_Gardens%3A_Solarpunk_Winters.html

Names

 It’s hard being autistic, especially in the old west. Sensory issues, uninformed attitudes, the fact that you can’t defeat a skin walker without looking in the eyes…

Beck Benally is peculiar.  She does not like to make eye contact, she hates to be touched, and she refuses to say anyone’s real name, choosing instead to give them nicknames whether they like it or not.  Most of the town wants her to change, but she doesn’t really care… That is, until a mysterious creature kills someone she knows. You see, Beck might just be the only person in town who knows how to defeat a skin-walker...

Unfortunately, the trick is that you have to look them in the eye. And say their real name.

 Names is a story about being different and still being awesome, about accepting yourself, and about finding the people who aren’t annoyed by your peculiarities.

Beck is basically me when I was thirteen.  Write down to my weird fear of saying names. I loved fantasy fiction and mythology, but the way you defeat most monsters wouldn’t work for me. I thought you had to be physically strong, which I am not because I’m disabled, or you have to look someone in the eye or say their name or any other thousand other things my disability and autism wouldn’t let me do.  Were people like me not allowed to save the day?

On the rare occasion that a character would share my peculiarities, they always defeated the monster by overcoming them. But autism isn’t a thing to overcome.  Sure, there are a lot of annoying things about autism that get in my way every day, but I can’t have a magical cure and I wouldn’t want one anyway because… It isn’t something to cure. It’s me. So I decided I needed to write about a character who finds a way to work with her autism, not overcome it, to defeat the monster.

 I wrote the story before I moved into the group home where I live, so the uncomfortable friendship between Beck and Blue wasn’t based on anyone in particular.  In fact, when I wrote it, it felt like pure fiction to me. I did not think anyone could really be OK with all the weird parts of me that everyone else hates. And then I met the people who work at my group home. A few in particular. They don’t always “understand“ why I am the way I am or why I’m acting a certain way, but they accept it and love me anyway.

So I am deciding that Blue is retroactively based on my favorite people here. :)

 Names is available in Nothing Without Us, an anthology edited by Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson which features  disabled characters, neurodivergent characters, spoonie characters, and characters who live with mental illnesses, written by authors who also fall into those categories.

(Cait is also one of our Space Opera Libretti authors!  Expect an update about that project soon!)

 Read more about the book and find out where you can purchase it here: https://nothingwithoutusanthology.wordpress.com/2019/09/30/nothing-without-us-is-now-available

Breadcrumbs and Sugar Houses--a new, free story

 Good morning!

Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline is a new anthology of  fairytales with a 1910s-1940s  Science fiction twist. And I… Well, I am not in it.  But the editor still loved my story so much  that she is publishing it  as a standalone short story to promote her book.

And I  can’t wait to read the book, because my friends Lizz and Jen are in it!  But  i’m sure I will have plenty of good things to say about their stories after September 3, when the book comes out. Let’s get back to my story for a moment.

Breadcrumbs and Sugar Houses  is loosely based on Hansel and Gretel,  but from the witch’s point of view.  You see, witches  aren’t actually evil. That’s just what the people in charge want you to believe. It’s all a conspiracy.  And it’s not the only conspiracy in town.

Mama Dulce runs a speaksweetly,  One of the only places in Boston where you can sate  your sugar fix now that the sugar prohibition  is during its second year.  See, witches  are usually beautiful fat women who use sugar to do magic,  so a bunch of bigoted politicians decided sugar is unhealthy. Immoral even.  And now a couple Bureau folks are on her tail, looking for any reason to paint Dulce as the villain they want her to be.

 Well this witch ain’t going down without a fight,  and she is determined to become the author of her own story.

Breadcrumbs and Sugar Houses features magic, robots, and a hell of a lot of molasses.

 Download your free copy here:   

https://click.mlsend.com/link/c/YT0xMjI4ODg4Njg5MzI5ODM4MDA3JmM9aTJsMyZlPTE5MjgmYj0yNzE5Nzk0ODYmZD1sMXE0cTZw.mlLJcy6Hy6GME_SJGeyzuWeQRREMLyXT2larRuAfbGI

 And if you like this kind of story, consider pre-ordering the anthology. 

https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p165/Grimm%2C_Grit%2C_and_Gasoline.html

Pocketful of Souls author interview

 Hey look, I did an interview with Luna Station Quarterly about my smol demon child story “Pocketful of Souls”!

http://lunastationquarterly.com/issue-038-author-interview-jennifer-lee-rossman-and-pocketful-of-souls/

Dear Vegas - a free story

 Hello everyone. Today I bring you a  short story for your reading pleasure. Hopefully, anyway. :-)

Dear Vegas was originally published in an  anthology of speculative fiction featuring the city of Las Vegas. I was excited about it, until I read the rest of the book. Some of the stories were good, but most were just downright offensive. Women characters without agency, ableist slurs, fatphobia...  I couldn’t in good conscience recommend people read this book. So I didn’t. I took the link off of my website, I wrote a stern letter to the publisher (whose excuse was “we didn’t get diverse stories, so we didn’t publish diverse stories”).  I love my story, but I couldn’t ask anyone to buy the book because the other stories could harm people. 

  The publisher asked for one year exclusivity, meaning I couldn’t publish my work elsewhere for year. That ran out this month. Now, I could try to get it published, get paid for it again… Or I could just give the story to the world and let you guys read it for free.

 So here you go. I hope you enjoy it. 

Dear Vegas
 Jennifer Lee Rossman

Dear Vegas,

　

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I'd say this town ain't what it used to be, but you were never all that great to begin with. Just an oasis of crime and debauchery amid an endless desert, done up in rhinestones and flashing lights to hide the blood.

Oh, but how you sparkled. A galaxy on Earth, your constellations made of neon and strobe.

You were the place to be. The greatest singers belting out songs to define an era, women in their best dresses and men in their hats, every night buzzing with the promise of riches just a dice roll away.

And it was all for me. It was all just set dressing around the alter where they prayed to Lady Luck.

Not since the Romans called me Fortuna have I felt such devotion from the masses. Their rituals, their charms, their kisses before they let the dice fly... all to curry my favor in hopes that I might give them an ace or nudge the roulette ball toward their favorite number.

But you were always seedy, weren't you? Deep down, hidden behind Sinatra's smile that made all the women swoon? You were filled with gangsters and cheaters and greedy casino owners. I just chose not to see it.

Look at you now, trying to hide your faults with white tigers and dancing fountains, with celebrities on your slot machines and aging singers putting on matinee shows of greatest hits no one remembers.

But you're still you. The games are still rigged, the strip still brimming with drunk partygoers and the promise that you'll keep their secrets. Tired gamblers sit in windowless casinos where time ceases to exist, feeding coin after coin into your machines because they're due for a win, because they're wearing their lucky socks, because the big jackpot is coming, they can feel it. Their eyes glaze over, their pupils replaced by spinning reels that never land on two cherries in a row, but they can't leave, because you promised them they could be rich and happy.

You promised a lot of things.

There's a part of me that wants to leave this filthy little town and never look back. Just let the desert take you over. I wouldn't have trouble finding a culture in need of a luck goddess, after all.

But that wouldn't solve anything, would it? Your casinos would crop up somewhere else, your bachelorette parties would find other male strippers to throw money at. You would continue, just spread out across the world.

No, that isn't what you need. You, my dear Vegas, just need better luck.

That's why I'm walking your streets for the first time in years, camouflaged in my strappy heels and backless dress that tries to straddle the line between classy and trashy but only succeeds in drunkenly falling face-first into trashy.

I'm here to fix you.

　

***

　

A cacophony of light and sound fights for my attention, tugging me in one direction and then another.

Sometimes you're subtle, whispering promises of wealth and excitement. "Do you see my fountains?" you say. "The golden pyramid? Do you hear the clacking of chips being counted? This could all be yours, just take a chance..."

Other times you scream "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" in flashing neon, and I just have to shake my head. I don't look down on the establishments or the dancers; they fill a need in society. But there are more tasteful ways to advertise that sort of business.

Then again, no one ever accused you of having taste, did they?

One casino finally calls out to me louder than the rest. It doesn't have live lions prowling the lobby behind glass and its theme--a vaguely 1940s aesthetic meets retro-futurism--lacks the cohesion of the one down the street with all the Roman soldiers, but it has a certain charm. New carpets, fresh paint. It's making an effort.

The people here are like anywhere else: hopeful. Whether they're trust fund kids putting daddy's millions on black, senior citizen groups playing penny slots, or those sad addicts who just have to try one more hand, they all hope it'll happen to them.

I find a scraggly man down to his last chip, a man who needs it more than anyone else. I can tell that sort of thing, you know. When people are really desperate. I sense it on him the same way I sense it on you.

He puts his chip on four. Used to be his lucky number, but not so much now. I walk by and touch my lips to his cheek as the wheel spins round and round.

"For luck," I say, and walk on to the next table. I can hear him cheering behind me, more like sobs of relief. He places another bet, because they always do, and I kiss another stranger, and then another.

My luck will linger with them for a while, but it will fade. It must, or else they'll be accused of cheating. As I stand along the wall, watching my luck bring them such joy, I hope they have the presence of mind to quit while they're ahead.

They won't. No one ever does, and that's how you stay alive, but I can hope.

Or maybe I can do more than hope.

　

***

　

Do you hear that, my dear Vegas? The clinking waterfalls of coins falling into plastic buckets, so loud that it must be coming from every slot machine in the city?

That's the sound of dreams coming true, of jackpots being won. It's time you made good on all those promises you seem to have such trouble keeping.

At first they'll call them card counters, say there's a glitch in the machines. But with each kiss of luck, I will drain you of your ill-gotten riches. Your neon will go dark, your Eiffel Tower will be pawned to pay the rent. You will know what it feels like to lose everything.

But let it not be said that I am a cruel goddess. I will stop kissing every person in sight, let you keep your glittering showgirls and your tigers, if you will promise to be more fair. Let them win, if they truly need the money. Let them leave with more hope than they had when you welcomed them with that big gaudy sign of yours.

Can you be that sparkling Nevada diamond I fell in love with? I know it won't be easy, but here's a kiss for luck.

　

XO, Lady Luck

Solarpunk Winters table of contents reveal!

 Last summer, my story Riot of the Wind and Sun  was published in Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers, by World Weaver Press.  I am proud to say that in January, Solarpunk Winters  Will be released, and I will have a story in it!

Oil and Ivory  is about a  Community trying to  clean up an oil spill while also trying to help a pod of migrating narwhals.  It is queer  and fun and its working title may or may not have been “Fern Gully but with narwhals.”

Read the full announcement here!

Still not sure what solarpunk is? Watch this video where several solarpunk authors speak about what the genre means to them. It features Solarpunk Winters editor Sarena Ulibarri, and you might recognize the person at 3:20... (It’s me. You get to hear my horribly whiny voice lol)

My fair cavelady is published!

 There are a lot of stories about autistic kids,  and more often than that they are written by non-autistic people.  Which is all fine and dandy, except a lot of neurotypicals  have this strange obsession with fixing us. We must overcome our autism in order to become the heroes. I find that incredibly insulting, because I can’t overcome my autism. My autism is me, and I shouldn’t have to overcome myself in order to be important.

 The plot to My Fair Lady reminds me of these kind of stories. There was nothing wrong with Eliza Doolittle; she was just different than Henry Higgins, and Henry decided it was his duty to fix her. He could have  helped her find a job  where she was allowed to be herself, But no.  He decided she wasn’t good enough the way she was.

My Fair Cavelady  is a retelling of this  story, but told from the perspective of an autistic girl named Henrietta Higgins, who invents a brainwave helmet to cure her own autism. But when she gets the chance to use it on an autistic Neanderthal named Eliza, she wonders if it’s ethical to cure something that isn’t a problem to begin with.

 My story has been published in Brave New Girls:  adventures of Gals and Gizmos,  The fourth volume of the anthology series (and the  Second volume I have been a part of) which gives its profits to the society of women engineers scholarship fund.

I am very excited to read my copy, Especially because I have several friends in the book! Pick up your copy here https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Girls-Adventures-Gizmos/dp/1072263165/ and get the ebook here https://books2read.com/Gals-and-Gizmos

New story! And it’s a podcast!

 In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a dinosaur nerd. I am also autistic, disabled, and queer. And now I have a story that combines all of these parts of my life.

Let me set the stage.  It’s the 1850s, and dinosaur fever is sweeping the nation. The nation of Britain anyway.  America… Let’s just say, there is a sequel in the works, and it gets pretty weird. But this is real history. For the world‘s fair,  some people  built life-size, extremely accurate dinosaur statues, Which you can still see you today in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park.

 Only problem is, The dinosaurs… In a word? Suck. They are not at all realistic, looking more like fat dragons then the lean and agile animals we  now understand them to have been.  But back then, they were the pinnacle of scientific accuracy.  No one got upset at the way they were portrayed.

Which brings me to  my story. Samira  is an autistic  girl of Indian descent, Living in a steam punk version of 1850s England.  And she is mad. Dinosaurs are her thing, her special interest. And she has studied fossils enough to understand that the crystal palace statues are laughable. But she is a gay, autistic, Indian girl.  No one is going to take her seriously.

So her day at Crystal Palace  is ruined, which really sucks for Matilda, but disabled girl who really wanted to ask Samira  to be her girlfriend. What is a queer  mechanic to do?

Build a robot dinosaur, obviously.

 Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons  is possibly my favorite story I’ve ever written. And I know what you’re thinking, “I bet there are a ton of Jurassic Park references in the story!“ And you would be wrong. Oh, trust me, I tried. But every time I tried, it felt really forced.

But never fear, for Jurassic Park has still  left its mark on my writing. An entire park filled with dinosaurs that were not made correctly?  A park made by a man with more money than  common sense?  Yeah,  that sounds pretty Jurassic Park  to me.

 Read my story, and listen to it being read, on Glitter Ship

http://www.glittership.com/2019/06/24/episode-76-of-clockwork-hearts-and-metal-iguanodons-by-jennifer-lee-rossman/

Pocketful of Souls

  Hello everybody. I really should  update this  blog more often. I have a long update in my draft folder, explaining everything that’s been going on in my life since February. I actually don’t know how much I’ve told people, but this is the short version:

I’ve lived with my mom my entire life. In February I decided it wasn’t working anymore, and I moved out. I moved out fast, and it was confusing and scary and fun. I stayed in a nursing home, and then there was a group home that was willing to take me in, and it’s not perfect but it’s pretty good, and when things are bad it’s hard to remember that they could be worse, but for the most part everything is really good and this is a really long run on sentence.  Shame on me as an author. :-) 

 I’ve gotten several stories accepted. I don’t remember which ones I’m allowed to announce right now, so I won’t. What I can tell you is that I have a story in this year’s volume of Brave New Girls, with proceeds going to the society of women engineers scholarship fund.  My story is a steam punk autistic retelling of Pygmalion.

But today I come to you with a tale of Amy.  Amy is a demon, And also an adorable little girl. But like most demons, Amy is up to something.

Pocketful of Souls is available for free on  Luna Station Quarterly, And also in their paperback issue. 

http://lunastationquarterly.com/story/pocketful-of-souls/

Another publication!

 I have another publication to share with you! Five Minutes at Hotel Stormvove  is an anthology where each story takes place over five minutes, at the same hotel. Some of them are  Science fiction,  some are fantasy. Some are  set in the past, some in the future.  It’s a genre mashup for the ages.

 My story, the repatriation heist,  takes the five minute theme and plays with it. You see, my main character is a witch. A time traveling witch.  A time traveling, autistic witch.  And she visits the hotel to rescue a spirit stolen from its native land. Except the heist  is a little more confusing than that, Because she has to relive the same  60 seconds five different times in order to get it right.

 There are a lot of authors in this book, and I know At least five of them  from other anthologies and projects, so I’m really excited to get my copy! You can get yours here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1945009403/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Squatchin'

My newest short story publication is Squatchin', in SERIAL magazine!

When rival bigfoot hunters -- one studious and scientific, the other a viral YouTube star -- find themselves in the same forest one night, they discover something far more interesting than the elusive sasquatch... (Spoiler: it's each other.)

(This is the story I was calling "gay bigfoot hunters")

Buy your digital copy here: https://www.serialpulp.com/shop/digital-issue-eight

I’m back and I have a story published!

 Hello everyone. It’s been a while. I can’t even begin to Summarize my last two months, so I will save that for another day.  I am dictating this to my phone, so please excuse any typos, random capitalization and punctuation, and  words that might not seem quite right.

 At some point, I will have stories to tell you guys about what’s been going on with me. They are stories of  major life changes,   of finding yourself, and of teasing pretty guys. They will find their way into my fiction  someday, I’m sure of that.

 But for now, I have a new publication to share with you. My story is called the Thunderbird photo, and it is part of hidden histories, An anthology published by third flatiron.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1  e-book link

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732218986   Paperback link

 The book is all about secret histories  and conspiracies, the “truth “behind events from history, both real and imagined. My story is called the Thunderbird photo, and it’s a surprisingly personal one.

 There’s something called the Mandela effect.  This is when a large group of people share a false memory of something that never happened. It was named after him Nelson Mandela, because when he died, a lot of people erroneously remembered him having died in the 1980s, not the 2000s. There are other Mandela effects, Ranging from people remembering movies that never existed, to remembering  major events in history in a completely different way than everyone else. This is not a simple memory error in one person, because many people remember it or “remember “it the same way. Read more about it here: https://mandelaeffect.com/

 One of my favorite Mandela effects  involves a picture of a Thunderbird. A lot of people remember seeing a famous photo, almost definitely a hoax,  of a gigantic bird that had been killed somewhere in the wild west sometime in the late 1800s. Except when you try to find that photo? It doesn’t exist. Or it doesn’t look the way everyone remembers.  I am one of these people.

 I distinctly remember seeing a photo in a book called mysteries of the unexplained. The bird was propped up against a barn in a black-and-white photo  and the man who had killed it or pose in front of it. I have looked for this photo. It is not in the book. It is not anywhere on the Internet. There are some modern day re-creations of this photo, but they put the bird on the roof of the barn instead of against the wall, or the “bird“ is actually a pterodactyl, or 1000 other inconsistencies  that do not line up with the photo I remember so clearly from my childhood.

 That is what my story is about.

Announcements, Cross Stitch, and an Interview

First, before I forget, I did an interview about my spooky story in Neon Druid:
https://mtmisery.com/2019/02/17/neon-druid-interview-jennifer-lee-rossman/



　

I've signed a couple contracts recently, so I can share some exciting news. And now that I think of it, it's all autism related. I tell you what, realizing I'm autistic has really impacted my life and my writing in positive ways. (Read my autistic essay here: https://www.wattpad.com/691607417-unbroken-book-two-essays-friendship-by-jennifer)



My autistic-acceptance story My Fair Cavelady will be part of the next volume of Brave New Girls!

The Repatriation Heist is a story about a time traveling autistic witch, which will be in Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove. (The editor is one of our Libretti authors -- we're editing each other!) Preorders available here: https://hotel-stormcove.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders



　

Finally, Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons will be published online as a podcast on GlitterShip. It's probably the most "on brand" story I've ever written, combining all my trademarks: disability, autism, dinosaurs, robots, queers, and obscure historical facts!

　

I'll have more about all these stories and the anthologies as they get closer. Especially the dinosaur one. Fair warning, the blog post about that one is going to have a lot of yelling about inaccurate depictions of dinosaurs

　

Finally, speaking of autism and dinosaurs, have I mentioned that I'm autistic and love dinosaurs? I feel like I've brought that up once or twice. Anyway. Dinosaurs are my thing. Autistics sometimes call it a special interest.

I see no reason to do crafts unless there's a way for me to make dinosaurs with it. (Wait till you see the 3D purple parasaurolophus I'm crafting out of yarn and plastic canvas. It's *awesome.*) So here's my latest cross stitch, a cowgirl riding a utahraptor. Semi-based on my story The Good, the Bad, and the Utahraptor (http://www.castofwonders.org/2018/11/cast-of-wonders-332-dinovember-the-good-the-bad-and-the-utahraptor/).

It's about 3 inches tall, and is done on 18 count fabric.

No, the raptor doesn't have visible feathers. It was an artistic choice. Maybe he's covered in green plumage.

Take Meme to Your Leader

Take Meme to Your Leader was originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 7, edited by Alex Shvartsman. It's a great book, full of funny sci-fi and fantasy stories.

 

I'm posting this story for free because it's about Internet memes, and I recognize that the nature of memes means they're ever-changing and what's funny now will be old news someday, possibly very soon. I'd love to seek reprint for this story and get paid for it, but honestly? I just want as many people as possible to enjoy it while it's still relevant.

 

 

 

 

 



Take Meme to Your Leader

Jennifer Lee Rossman

I always thought when aliens invaded, they'd have giant ships hovering ominously over the major world cities. They'd demand to be taken to our leaders, right? Or skip that step entirely and just blast us to hell?

That's what they were supposed to do. And then Will Smith would come and say something cool and we'd all be safe, at least until the sequel.

But nope.

They pick me, Maddie Espinoza, Youtuber.

And they choose to invade in the middle of one of my makeup tutorials. This huge, hulking reptilian thing with giant eyes, just standing in the corner of my bedroom while I demonstrate the proper way to get the perfect smokey eye.

I scream, brandishing my curling iron like a gun and praying to Sephora, patron saint of cosmetics, that its planet doesn't have curling irons. It doesn't so much as flinch, just stands there like a cardboard cutout of a floppy-haired teen idol outside the FYE at the mall.

Wait. Is it a cutout?

It could very well be one of the xenomorphs from Alien, except with a few extra arms. And, you know, the pink pussy hat. I stand up straight, craning my neck to get a better look. It's just like my damn roommates to play this sort of prank but my dog doesn't usually growl at cutouts and OH GOD IT BLINKED.

What do I do, what do I do?

I decide my best option is screaming again and throwing a bottle of mascara at its head. In hindsight, maybe not Top Ten Greatest Idea I've Ever Had material, but it doesn't interpret my actions as an act of war, so I think we're good. It just waves one of its six arms and opens its fanged mouth in a gruesome attempt at a smile.

"Much hello," he says in a tiny voice not befitting his whole seven-foot tall murder-cicada aesthetic, "many peace."

I blink and lower my curling iron. "What."

"Much hello, many peace," he repeats. "I come to seek help from Earth. My planet is in danger from our tyrannical leader. He protec, but he also attac with nuclear weapons."

And just like that, the fear and wonder of first contact is gone. I'm talking to an actual extraterrestrial... and he's speaking in Internet memes.

"What," I say again.

"He protec—"

"But he also attac," I mutter. "Yeah, I heard you." I hit record on my computer because no one will ever believe it otherwise, and pick up Cashew before she escalates from growling to biting. "Okay, fine. Let's pretend I buy that you're not here to kill us all. You're about a thousand miles from anyone important enough to begin to help with your problem."

He nods. Should I be calling it a "he"? It sounds like a male voice. Other than the hat, it isn't wearing a stitch of clothing, and its body is covered in a hard shell. Not a lot of visible genitalia.

Thank. God.

"Yes, but your queen has much security." At my blank look, he elaborates, "Queen Selena Gomez the First. I could not access her castle, so I went down the list and chose a smol duchess at random."

He produces a device that looks like a phone — from what pocket of his nonexistent clothes, I don't even want to know — and steps toward me. I step back, because that's what you do when an alien is walking toward you and you're all out of Reese's Pieces.

"Y u no trust me?" he says. I swear, I can hear the chatspeak in his voice.

"You're an alien," I say, trying to keep the fear from my voice. "Our culture teaches us to be afraid of..." I gesture vaguely at him. "Things like you."

He turns and stares helplessly at the computer.

"What are you doing?" I ask after a full minute has passed.

"Looks at camera like I'm on The Office." He does that awful smile thing again as he turns back to me. "We know all about your culture. Learned from your series of tubes." He indicates the phone, and shows me what appears to be a list of the most followed Instagram accounts. He has to scroll down quite a few pages to get to my name, but hey. If he thinks that makes me Earth royalty, I'm not about to disenchant him of that notion.

The alien bends down to look at Cashew. "And here we have a doggo," he says, sounding like a narrator in a nature documentary. "Notice its shiny wet boop-snoot, which is believed to serve the same function as a human nose."

I cover my face with my hand and take deep breaths, fighting back the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside me.

Aliens exist, they've learned English from social media, and they want my help to save their planet. Because Selena Gomez was busy. This is fine.

###

You know that thing where people say "It's quiet in here—too quiet"? Well, it's way too quiet in here.

Alieny McAlienface (swear to god, that's what he calls himself) went downstairs while I changed into more professional clothes. Somehow I doubt my narwhal-print pajamas will make the security guy at the Pentagon take us seriously when we ask to come in and talk to [important person]. Then again, I'll be with a seven-foot insect in a pussy hat. No one will be looking at me.

But I haven't heard a peep since.

I head downstairs cautiously, half hoping it was all a hallucination from moldy eye shadow. No such luck.

I find Alieny McAlienface standing in the common room, his buggy yellow eyes closed in what looks like ecstasy. He's foaming at the mouth.

I cling to the banister, unsure whether I should help him or defend the planet. "What's wrong?"

His eyes snap open and he gives me a fangy grin. "Nothing wrong. I am partaking in an Earthly custom." When I don't respond, he adds, "I have eaten the Tide Pods that were in the laundry room."

Any fear I have of this thing invading the planet fizzles away, and I find myself wondering exactly how wrong it would be if I asked Alieny McAlienface to do the cinnamon challenge.

"That's great," I say. "Good for you. That's totally not toxic." How is this my life... "So where are you from?"

His face lights up. "Why not visit Zoltar VII? We have murder noodles! Sandcastle rubble! Fire boi! Meow birds! Sister Mary Catherine! Bleeding thermometers!"

Never have I been at such a loss for words. "Okay then. Are you ready to go—"

Another alien appears in the room, just there in the blink of an eye without any special effects or anything.

This one's head scrapes the ceiling; he easily has two feet in height on Alieny McAlienface. And two feet in limbs, making the overall appearance even more buglike.

I should be afraid. I should be screaming my head off like Drew Barrymore meeting ET, but honestly. What's the difference between having one enormous alien in your house and having two? It's not like the day could get any weirder.

Pro-tip: I don't care how weird your day is. I don't care if you wake up to the sound of your pillowcases putting on a Hamilton parody called Shamilton, or if your betta fish suddenly develops the ability to speak in a voice that sounds uncannily like Patrick Stewart. If you value your safety at all, do not tempt the universe by saying your day can't get weirder. It doesn't like that, and it will find a way to turn the weird shit up to eleven.

In my case, that means Alieny McAlienface shrieks "He comes to attac!" while spraying detergent all over the room, and thrusts his head behind the coat rack.

The big one, for what it's worth, seems completely flummoxed by Alieny McAlienface's sudden disappearance, and whirls about dramatically shouting, "All your base are belong to us! All your base are belong to us!"

Now, I'm not the brightest lip gloss in the pack, but even I can take a hint. This is the leader, the one who protec but also attac. And now he's on Earth.

Rage surges in me, but I go and hide behind the coat rack because I'm a scared little cinnamon roll.

"This is good," Alieny McAlienface confides in me, grinning. "He can has Earth, and my people can be free."

Is he serious? "I'm not giving him Earth. It's the only planet with caffeine and Hemsworth brothers."

He blinks, his mouth drawn into a perfectly straight line. "Neutral face emoji?"

"No. Red face with symbols over mouth emoji. Besides, I don't have the authority to give Earth to an alien. You'd have to get Selena Gomez's permission."

Alieny McAlienface gives me a skeptical look. Out beyond the safety of the coat rack, if the crashes of broken glass are any indication, the leader has begun his conquest of Earth, starting with picture frames and tchotchkes.

I wonder if damage by alien overlords is covered by my pet deposit, but push the thought aside. "Why are we hiding behind a coat rack?"

"We do not have x-ray vision," Alieny McAlienface says, as if that explains everything. "He cannot see us through the clothes."

"Yes, but he saw us go back here—" I shake my head. Don't question the things keeping us from being killed. "Okay. So going to ask the government for help isn't an option. We need a more immediate plan of attack."

Alieny McAlienface holds up his communication device. "I will call my friend and he will charge in and valiantly defeat the enemy."

"Hang on." If they learned about us from the Internet... "Is your friend named Leeroy Jenkins?"

He nods excitedly.

"No. Something else." I think back to what he said about his planet. "You come from a place with sandcastle rubble and bleeding thermometers. Is it a desert? Is it hot?"

"It is all the hot."

"Tell me more. What can hurt you?"

He thinks for a minute. "Venomous snakes."

"Something I might have access to."

"Oh." He thinks again. A curio cabinet crashes in the dining room. "Cold," Alieny McAlienface says finally. "Cold wetness. We freeze into special little broflakes." He licks a bit of detergent foam from his lip, and an idea strikes me.

I grab his phone—it has a Hello Kitty cover, because of course it does—and message myself so I have his number. "Wait thirty seconds and toss this to your leader." Another crash in the dining room betrays the big guy's location, and I waste no time running to the kitchen.

"Warning!" Alieny McAlienface screams as I fill a glass with cold water and toss in a few ice cubes. "He is sliding into your DMs! And also your kitchen!"

I hold out my phone and start recording. The fate of the world is about to rely on an outdated viral video campaign. "This is the ice bucket challenge. I'm tagging the big cicada-looking dickhead who's about to murder me."

The ice water is a shock to my system, but I hit Send just as the Hello Kitty phone smacks the leader in the back of the head. My voice replays, tinny and distant, and he stops dead in his tracks to watch.

His shoulders slump in an uncannily human way as he realizes I've tagged him, and he walks toward me. I hold my breath as the tyrannical alien leader steps up to me, but he merely meets my eyes and growls, "I am bound by your decree to perform this ritualized baptism of ice and buckets."

He wrenches the glass from my hand and fills it, never breaking eye contact.

###

"So what happens now?" I ask Alieny McAlienface as we scoop the remains of his leader into a very dignified garbage bag.

"Now my people must learn to govern themselves. Rebuilding the government got me like—" He puts a hand on either side of his face and does his best impersonation of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. "—but we can do it. There are probably many YouTube tutorials about starting a democracy."

"You might try looking up an ancient series of texts by the great scholar Schoolhouse Rock."

His eyes light up. "Ooh, we shall indeed. And should we ever require your planet's assistance—"

"I know. You'll go to Selena Gomez."

"We will go to she with the most followers," he corrects, and points to my phone.

For a second, my brain refuses to acknowledge the number beside my name as an actual number, but it's true. I have close to two hundred million followers. I look at Alieny McAlienface, my mouth hanging open.

"Our population is numerous," he says simply. "It's over 9000!" He takes the bag o'dead leader and drops to one knee. "And now, Queen Maddie Espinoza the First and Royal Doggo Cashew the Floofiness, I must leave you with the traditional farewell of my people, which we learned of in your most sacred religious tome."

"Wikipedia?" I guess.

"The Urban Dictionary," he corrects. Alieny McAlienface takes my hand and Cashew's paw, and pauses dramatically. "Bye, Felicia," he says, and then he's gone.

END